I have no poll data, but I have some experience turning out Latino voters and I've been asking questions of people who are working on doing just that. Some observations:

Clinton is clearly targeting the Latino segment of the electorate. She's making the right visits, leaning on surrogates like Dolores Huerta, Antonio Villaraigosa, and the United Farm Workers Union. People like to have attention paid to them, particularly if they are used to being ignored. She should do well among Latinos.

Meanwhile, Obama has his own emissaries to Latino voters, notably Maria Elena Durazo, the leader of the Los Angeles Labor Council which has outstandingly prioritized organizing low wage immigrant, largely Latino, workers. His Kennedy family endorsements are also likely to carry some weight. Many immigrant households still display portraits of JFK as the iconic good American president. (I know, not my understanding of the guy, but I am just reporting what I have seen.)

Clinton may also be hitting some notes that don't quite address California reality. She's running a TV ad that features Cesar L. Chavez talking about his grandfather. I suspect such appeals to the farm worker leader's legacy may not resonate as much as her people think. When the labor leader died, the buzz around the San Francisco Mission was: “Cesar Chavez? Oh, yeah, wasn't he a great boxer?” [Yes. Julio Cesar Chavez was a great boxer, at the time of the other Chavez's death, a world lightweight champion.] I routinely ask young Latinos whether they have heard of the United Farm Workers founder. Only the ones who have been taught about him in school seem to have a notion of his work. Many older folks, voters, may have less attachment to Chavez.

In the past, polls have not been particularly good at capturing the sentiments of Latino voters. The most accurate polls employ interviewers who share culture with the interviewees -- in particular people who can distinguish polite agreement from real agreement. Because good polling requires skilled interviewers, it is expensive to carry out among minority segments of the electorate and frequently has not been done well. As a result, Latino voters surprised pollsters with the strength of their vote on some occasions in the 1990s. That said, I think the polling organizations are far better at conducting this difficult kind of opinion research today than they were ten years ago.

I have an impression that many in the Latino electorate are "late deciders." Like a lot of people, they have other things to do besides think about politicians. Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) thinks this hurts Obama.

“When you are washing dishes and waiting tables and are working these kinds of jobs, you don’t pick up Newsweek and find out the phenomenon about Barack Obama,” said Gutierrez, who says Latinos don’t know Obama.

Those of us who are political junkies have a hard time understanding how very many people, Latinos and non-Latinos, overworked and comfortably off, have paid no attention at all to this election we find so gripping. This inattention could actually work for Obama -- if a positive impression of him is coming into focus just as people vote, he could surpass expectations among late deciders.

Obama has been solidly in favor of issuing drivers' licenses to the undocumented -- he has refused to be drawn into discussing this as anything more than a practical automotive safety measure. On this issue, Obama's stance is deeply in accord with California's Latino community where most every family has an uncle or niece who is out of status.

Staff of some of the unions that actually organize low wage workers are busily working to raise turnout among their members, not for the presidential primary, but about several initiative measures. When I ask them who their members are leaning toward, they've confirmed the polling that Clinton is very strong. "The workers remember good times under Bill and they want that back," one told me.

Columnist Ruben Navarette Jr, who is not someone I often find myself agreeing with, thinks a lot of the buzz about whether Latinos will vote for a Black man is actually white people playing out our racism. He points out that Latinos frequently have voted in great numbers for Black mayors of major cities -- how do we think David Dinkins or Harold Washington or Tom Bradley each won their city's top jobs? Voters who belong to any kind of minority are usually pretty pragmatic voters -- after all, being in a minority means discerning who that is not one of your own will be most likely to care for your interests. Navarette quips:

Next thing you know, pundits are going to tell us that Latinos are too macho to elect a woman president.

1 comment:

jorge
said...

California Latinos -- Your vote tomorrow is very important and will probably determine our next president of the United States.

Barack Obama has a long history of supporting the Latino population as represented by his strong Latino popularity in his homestate. Give him a chance to make your lives better and protect your jobs and interests. He will stand a much better chance at beating either McCain/Romney come next November due to his previous voting record.

What is this blog for?

This San Francisco purveyor of graffiti has it right. When times are bleak -- when country and planet sink under the barely restrained sway of greed, raw power, and fear -- it's time to restate what matters.

I write here to preserve and kindle hope for a national and global turn toward multi-racial, economically egalitarian, gender non-constricting, woman affirming, and peace choosing democracy that preserves the habitability of earth for all. There's a big order -- but what else is there to do but struggle for this? Not much.

Topics range from the minuscule to the transcendent to the global, from dire to delightful. I am not an optimist, but I refuse to allow myself to wallow within the easy bias that everything is going to always be awful. Good also happens; love lives too.

I've been yammering here about activism, politics, history, racism and other occasional horrors and pleasures since 2005. I intend to continue as long as the opportunity exists. In this time, that means activism and chronicling resistance. Perhaps it always has, one way and another.

About Me

I'm a progressive political activist who runs trails and climbs mountains whenever any are available. I've had the privilege to work for justice in Central America (Nicaragua and El Salvador), in South Africa, in the fields of California with the United Farmworkers Union, and in the cities and schools of my own country. I'm a Christian of the Episcopalian flavor; we think and argue a lot. For work, I've done a bit of it all: run an old fashioned switch-board; remodeled buildings and poured concrete; edited and published periodicals, reports and books; and organized for electoral campaigns. Will work for justice.